How do you maintain faith in lockdown?
For some, the global Covid-19 pandemic has helped to demonstrate that we live in a Godless world, at the mercy of random forces. Yet in Judaism there is a well-developed instinct to respond to suffering by turning to faith.
As the global health crisis has spread, it has created ripe conditions, at least in some quarters, for encouraging a turn to religion to try to offer a path from the fear of isolation to hope. Yet how can this be achieved when individuals are severed from their communities? Judaism seeks to nurture individual relationships with God, but generally these are developed within the context of communal life. Can the growth of Digital Judaism fill this gap?
While many Jews might be willing to log in to online events, are they logging on too? This talk considers some of the challenges of contemporary Jewish theology.
Freud-Kandel is Fellow and Lecturer in Modern Judaism in the Faculty of Theology and Religion at the University of Oxford. Her research interests focus on the theological development of modern and contemporary Judaism, in particular examining Orthodox Judaism, British Jewry, and gender issues. Her latest book is a co-edited volume on Yitz Greenberg and Modern Orthodoxy: The Road not Taken (Boston, 2019).
Her current research project is a book length study on Louis Jacobs and the Quest for a Contemporary Jewish Theology. She is also co-convener of the annual Oxford Summer Institute on Modern and Contemporary Judaism.
JW3 is delighted to be partnering with the Oxford Centre for Jewish and Hebrew Studies and hosting this series showcasing the Fellows of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish studies.
